1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a subassembly for installation in a housing, in particular the transmission or engine housing, of a motor vehicle, for establishing a flexible, fluid-(e.g., oil) tight connection for elements such as electrical leads, between the interior and exterior of the housing. The subassembly includes a supporting plate and a plug-in connector designed as a separate part and mounted on the supporting plate, the plug-in connector being intended for protruding through a connector opening in the housing in the installed state.
2. Description of the Related Art
Previously, electronic controllers located in the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle were used for engine and transmission control purposes. There is currently a trend toward integration of the control electronics and the associated sensor technology in the corresponding subassembly (i.e. engine or transmission). The advantages of such fully integrated engine or transmission control are increased reliability and lower costs.
To lead electrical signals out of the transmission or engine housing to the outside, oil-tight plug-in connectors are used. To ensure that the plug-in corrector can be mounted and sealed in a connector opening in the housing, suitable measures must be taken to compensate for installation tolerances in order to make the connector flexible. The plug-in connector in the installed state has to meet demanding requirements in terms of vibration resistance and long-term leak-tightness under difficult ambient conditions (vibrations up to about 33 g, temperature variation in the range from −40° to 140° C., and use of ATF oil as the ambient medium).
A plug-in transmission connector on which the contact pins in the base region are mounted on a leadframe carried in the supporting plate is already known. By suitable design of the leadframe and the provision of tiltable articulation of the connector base on the supporting body, the connector can be flexibly aligned within a specific tolerance range. The difficulties of this solution are the relatively great space requirement (a certain minimum distance must be maintained between the supporting plate and the housing) and the risk of material fatigue occurring in the region of the connections between the contact pins and the leadframe.
Another known possibility is to provide a rigid connection between the plug-in connector and the supporting body and to achieve the required tolerance compensation by a thick sealing O-ring, which is pushed onto the plug-in connector. This solution is not suitable to compensate for large tolerances and, moreover, does not allow optimum mechanical relief of the plug-in connector in the transitional region with respect to the supporting plate.
European patent application EP 0 908 974 A2 discloses a plug-in transmission connector which is mounted on the supporting plate by means of an intermediate element. The intermediate element has a sliding rail, in which the plug-in transmission connector is displaceable in a given direction parallel to the supporting plate. However, the displaceability of the plug-in transmission connector does not allow tolerance compensation, since the displacement takes place coaxially with respect to the axis of the connector opening.